On October 13, Jada Pinkett Smith will release her written memoir, Worthy, revealing some details about her life. Particularly surprising: the relationship status between her and Hollywood actor Will Smith. In an exclusive interview with the US television station NBC, the actress reveals to journalist Hode Kotb that the marriage is different than what the couple has previously portrayed publicly.
Although the prime-time special won’t air until October 13th, you could still watch excerpts from the interview on social media in advance. Jada Pinkett Smith makes it clear in the conversation that she and her former partner have been living “completely separate lives” since 2016. Legally, however, the marriage still exists.
When asked why they didn’t do the divorce on paper, the artist says: “I promised that there will never be a reason for us to divorce. We’ll deal with anything. I just couldn’t break that promise.” She had considered the legal separation, but it didn’t feel right yet.
This feeling also applied to the public announcement. Pinkett Smith told Hode Kotb, who visited her in her hometown of Baltimore for the hour-long special, that she “just wasn’t ready for it.” The actress also explains, “We’re still trying to figure out how we can both be in a relationship… In terms of how do we present this to people? We hadn’t figured that out yet.”
When the mother of two was asked what ultimately led to the “breakup” of the marriage, she almost had to grin a little. “Why it broke… It’s a lot of things… By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted from trying. I think we were both still stuck in our fantasies of what the other person should be like,” Pinkett Smith says of her and Will Smith’s marriage in 1997.
Back in 2020, the couple spoke about the difficulties of their relationship in a “Red Table Talk” interview. The main focus was on Pinkett Smith’s affair with rapper August Alsina. “I was done with you,” Will Smith joked in the episode. “Yes, you threw me out,” replied his estranged wife. “We separated.” But instead of getting back together – as they made it appear to the public – the couple went their separate ways from then on.
Will Smith released his memoir “Will” in 2021. Although he discussed his relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith, he obviously left out some crucial details.